Welcome To Wonkette Day-Drinking, With This Morning's Cocktail, The Tequila Sunrise!
A boat drink classic, made fresh and beautiful.
Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. Fourth of July week is an absolute madhouse at the bar, but I wanted to take a moment to share a cocktail that we’re putting on rotation for the summer menu. This classic boat drink is awful when made with cheap store-bought ingredients, but becomes a thing of wonder when you make it fresh. Let’s hang out by the pool on this Fourth of July and enjoy a Tequila Sunrise. Here’s the recipe:
Tequila Sunrise
2 oz fresh orange juice (1-2 Cara Cara oranges)
2 oz Sauza blanco tequila
½ oz pineapple juice
½ oz house grenadine
Shake the orange juice, pineapple juice, and tequila with ice and strain into a rocks glass. Slowly pour the grenadine into the cocktail, letting it sink to the bottom of the glass. Garnish with an orange wheel.
House Grenadine
1 cup pomegranate juice
1 cup sugar
¼ t orange blossom water
Heat all ingredients in a small saucepan over medium heat until the sugar has dissolved. Store in a sealed container. Keeps indefinitely in the fridge.
There are two iterations of this drink. The Prohibition-era version of the cocktail can be traced back to the Hotel Agua Caliente, a hotel just across the border from California with an attached casino and racetrack. The initial version of the cocktail used crème de cassis instead of grenadine and added soda water. Even then, the drink had a reputation as a 3-AM-keep-the-party-rolling sort of cocktail.
The version that dates to the ‘70s, the one we all know and love, can be attributed to three men. The first two gentlemen would be the drink’s creators, Bobby Lazoff and Billy Rice at the Trident, a trendy restaurant in Sausalito, California. The third would be the one and only Mick Jagger, who kicked off what would be known as the “Cocaine and Tequila Sunrise” tour of the Stones at the Trident. Mick Jagger really, really loved the drink. The Stones drank it everywhere they toured. They even served trays of the cocktail on their custom Boeing jet as they flew to their tour dates. America loved the Rolling Stones, and they fell in love with this drink as well.
This is a classic boat drink — fairly simple, fruit-based, descended from tiki culture, right up there with the Pina Colada and Harvey Wallbanger. I’ve generally ignored this category of drinks, because they tend to be terrible. Bottled juices, Rose’s grenadine, and mediocre liquor make for a bad night at the bar and an even worse morning. As time has passed, I’ve become less militant about these cocktails. The recipes aren’t inherently bad, for the most part. It’s the quality of the ingredients that defines their character. A Tequila Sunrise with quality juice is pretty perfect. I don’t hold out much hope for the Harvey Wallbanger, though.
I will note for the record that I first wrote up this cocktail in 2023. Looking back, it’s clear that I was trying too hard. Bottled mango orange juice? Honey syrup? This drink doesn’t need to be “fixed” like this. The ingredients only need to speak for themselves. I’ve changed a lot over two years as a bartender. I can still get too fiddly and fussy over ingredients, but I’ve learned to get out of the way when good tequila and fresh juices want a turn to speak.
Let’s talk ingredients:

Orange Juice: Fresh-squeezed makes all the difference — the drink becomes light and smooth, instead of heavy and cloying. It took two medium-sized Cara Cara oranges to make this cocktail; one large one would probably do. Feel free to use a different variety of orange if you’d like.
Sauza Blanco Tequila: My usual blanco tequila, El Jimador, is a bit too heavy on the agave to balance in this drink. Sauza is another 100 percent agave tequila that melds with the other ingredients in the cocktail well. Don’t use Sauza Hacienda; the bottles are almost identical, but the “hacienda” blend is a mixito that includes God-knows-what. 100 percent agave or bust.
Pineapple Juice: The drink needs a bit more acid, but lime makes the cocktail too tart. Pineapple adds just a touch of acid and a gentle tropical note to the glass. Feel free to try lime or grapefruit here if you’d prefer.
House Grenadine: Homemade grenadine is so much better than Rose’s Grenadine in every possible way. Rose’s is nothing more than red food coloring and corn syrup. Real grenadine is tart, floral, and sweet, an actual ingredient for a drink, not just red sugar. If you like cocktails, make this. Keep a bottle in the fridge at all times. You won’t regret it.
We aren’t linking to Amazon anymore, because fuck that coward Bezos with a rusty bar spoon. Go listen to Gloom and Doom, one of my favorite Stones tracks from 2012 (this band, God bless them, is immortal). Feels like a pretty appropriate theme for 2025.
You can find me on Bluesky at @samuraigrog!
OPEN THREAD! DRINK!
We had 1000 guests at the bar last night. The need for coffee is real. Questions about the drink go here.
The movie post is up. It is our traditional 𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝟒𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐞: 𝐉𝐚𝐰𝐬!